3 local Catholic schools to make case to stay open

The three local Catholic schools facing closure in June will make their cases for staying open beginning next week.

BY MICHAEL RANDALL

The three local Catholic schools facing closure in June will make their cases for staying open beginning next week.

Principals at all three schools — Sacred Heart in Newburgh, St. Joseph in Kingston and St. Mary of the Snow in Saugerties — confirmed they are submitting proposals. They would not share details of those plans.

Sacred Heart Principal Mary Ann McGivney said she and four other representatives of the school will present their plan Tuesday. She said it's based on an approach that has been used successfully at other schools in the past.

St. Joseph School faced closure two years ago, and was the only one of six local schools to convince the Archdiocese of New York to keep it open then.

Principal Jeanne Dolamore is confident they can save the school again this time.

"Now we're in very good financial shape, and we have much higher enrollment," Dolamore said.

The school's enrollment, 205, has risen 34 percent in the past two years. If both St. Joseph and St. Mary close, it would leave Kingston Catholic School as the only archdiocese-run Catholic elementary school in Ulster County. Sullivan County already is down to one — St. Peter's Regional School in Liberty. There are six archdiocesan elementary schools in Orange County. A total of 26 elementary schools in the 10-county archdiocese were identified as being at risk of closing.

This latest round of proposed school closings also marked the start of a change in how such matters will be handled in the future: The list of at-risk schools was based on recommendations from local committees of clergy and laypersons, not archdiocese administrators. Those committees also will be involved in the appeals process.

The archdiocese also is moving to a regional approach to funding those schools that survive. In the future, all parishes in a region will have some financial responsibility toward those schools, rather than just the parish where the school is located.

Final decisions on which schools close and which ones stay open are expected later this month — just before Catholic Schools Week is celebrated.